Joining an Expat Club

A couple of weeks ago I joined a women’s expat club, and attended my first meeting.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, or if I even wanted to join (I’m a creature of habit and now was comfortable with my fairly boring life), but I knew I should at least try it out.

The meetings are really just coffee/tea/snacks and a time to meet and chat.   Our meeting was on a Wednesday morning.  I was unsure what to wear for this type of thing, so I went with the standard American uniform- blue jeans and a fitted t-shirt.  I wound up being underdressed (everyone except one other girl was in a dress or black slacks), but I didn’t feel uncomfortable because everyone was quite friendly.

 I had written the address, one of the member’s homes, in green felt marker on a scrap of paper.  I guess I was just too lazy to find a real pen.  I googled it, and it didn’t look too far away, but google maps India is pretty bad, so I gave my driver an hour to find it.   We headed out to the northern end of Bandra and the start of Khar West.  Neighborhoods blend together here, like in Chicago, so I don’t really know where one ends and another starts.   My driver stared at the address for a while, said it out loud, and started talking rapidly under his voice.  I guess he thinks out loud, because after the rapid talking he smiled and said he knew where to go to find the house. 

He drove, and within fifteen minutes was at what he said was the proper street.  “This is 14^th street,” he announced.  “Okay, but it is on 14A,” I retorted.  “Same road,” he said confidently.  I very much doubted that, but we had forty-five minutes to kill, so I decided it wouldn’t hurt to drive around until he figured it out for himself. 

Addresses in India are a bit different than in the US.   We didn’t have a street number to hunt for, just a landmark that it is near.  The same thing is true with my home address- no street number, but I do write that I live opposite a high school. Presumably the mailman delivers a lot of mail to the high school, and drivers drop a lot of people off at the high school, so then, once you reach that high school, the mailmen and drivers look around and find your apartment building. 

So, my address at my last residence of Chicago would have been something like “apartment number, building name, near the double tree hotel, opposite massage envy, Streeterville, Chicago, IL.   Whereas in the US, we would have said “Apartment number, apartment address, Chicago, IL”

Anyhow, we were driving around, looking for that landmark.  In this case the landmark was a nail salon.  We drove the entire length of the road and reached the end, did a U-turn, and faced back the way we had had already driven.  I again suggested that perhaps we should look for 14A road instead of 14^th road.   He merely shook his head, grabbed the scrap of paper with the green ink and went to ask people on the street.   He got back in and continued to re-trace our steps.  

About halfway through re-tracing our steps, he stopped at a Dominos to ask for directions.  Maybe he assumed all expats like pizza, so they had delivered to this home before.  Or maybe it was a coincidence he stopped at Dominos, I don’t know.  He was gone for several minutes, because after he failed to get directions at Dominos he walked around the corner and swung his arms widely in frustration.  I wonder if he went to yell someplace out of my hearing range.   He came back, pointed at the phone number in green ink and said, “Can I call them for directions?”  I begged no, saying it would be weird to call them for the first time and my first meeting.   I assured him we still had plenty of time, and we could call in a half hour if he still hadn’t found it.  “But,” I added, “I think we should get off this street and find 14A road.”  He finally listened, turning left at the next large intersection.  Low and behold, not one hundred feet away, was a sign with the road name on it. 

We confidently drove down the road, searching for the nail salon.   We quickly found it and my driver pulled over and asked a doorman which apartment building was the one we were looking for.   The doorman pointed.   It was a modern building, with a large wooden gate.  We had found it!   I checked my watch.  We were exactly a half hour early. 

I remember my mom telling me once that Gramps thinks it takes an hour to go to any location, which was why he was always a half hour early to our family dinners.  Well, I guess I inherited that genetic trait!  I gave myself an hour to get there, and found it a half-hour too early!  

Being my first meeting, and not knowing a soul inside, I had my driver pull around the block and we parked in the shade and waited.   He requested to turn off the AC and open the windows, which surprised me.  He is always complaining about how hot it is to wait in the car.  I thought he’d be thrilled to sit in the AC.   But he always surprises me. 

I really enjoy talking to my driver.   The day before, he had a long conversation with me, about how he thinks India would be much better off if they were still under British power.  I think, being a minority, he probably has very different viewpoints than anyone I would speak to that I had met through other avenues, such as my husband’s co-workers.   My driver strikes me as very intelligent when it comes to Indian news, though his world knowledge is a bit off, so I enjoy hearing his arguments.   He really regrets leaving school to work, and I know that his life goal is to make sure his son doesn’t have to quit his schooling. He wants a son that can read and speak and have a better life.   I think he believes he would have had a better life under British rule because they would have forced him to go to school.   I pointed out that the British were using the Indians for target practice for a while, but as he pointed out, there were far fewer people getting shot than leaving school.   

I have very little in-depth knowledge of the British/India split sixty odd years ago, but I can’t imagine that being under someone’s power is better than having your own freedom.   Yes, I agree with him, Indian government is corrupt, but it is still a young government.  I guess Americans are still pretty touchy above British rule, even if it did end over two centuries ago!   But I’m not a female working in an 1800s needle sweatshop from dusk until dawn.  I wonder how I would have felt then, when the country was young and labor cheap, about the lack of British rule. 

Anyhow, my driver and I had a slightly more innocuous conversation that day- we just listened to the radio, him pointing out songs he liked, me playing brickbreaker on my blackberry.   He told me it was important to make a good first impression on the people and to show up early, not late.   I love it when he gives me advice like that.  It just makes me smile and feel like I have a grandma rather than a 34-year-old driver looking out for me. 

Eventually he showed me video on his cell phone- his neighbor has a cat, and apparently my driver spends hours every day teasing it with a string.  No wonder he and my mom got along so well!   As we were watching the video, he started repeating urgently, “Don’t look back!”  I waited, confused, and then, as two people pasted us, he said, “see, and now look at them!”  I think it was two women, but it was unclear to me, based on his description whether they were gay women, or gay men who dressed up like women.  What I could see was a broad back in a red sari. 

Regardless of who the person was, my driver told me details about this red-clad person, and he/she is the creepiest individual I can imagine.  They prey on pregnant women.  They walk around a neighborhood, following them.  When one is found, they follow them home, ask the doorman what floor the woman lives on, and then, once she has given birth, returns to the home.  The entire family has to find about a month’s worth of income to give him /her money, so he/she will bless the child.  Otherwise, he/she curses the family.   Once the family has paid up, the person puts their signature mark (think like Prince’s name symbol) on the wall or door of the person’s house, so that other people who do the same thing know they have already been solicited.  

I was so confused, but my Driver told me that people welcome this nutcase.  Weird.  If anyone can shed further light on that story, I’d be glad to hear it!

Time slipped past comfortably, and he soon started the engine and pulled around the block for me to enter the meeting. I actually got a tiny bit nervous- once I know people, I get along with them great, but meeting people is always something that I have felt a bit awkward about, probably because I am a natural hermit and my niche is a comfortable seat with a good book in my hands.  When I was an RA at Michigan, I could memorize people’s names at a drop of a hat, but they were names I was familiar with, grew up with, here, I struggle to remember even one unfamiliar sounding name.   

I followed an overly helpful apartment building security guard to the elevator.   I nearly tripped in the lobby- it had a clear floor, and beneath the floor were brightly colored stones.   I didn’t notice, at first, that the floor was level, and tried, while rushing to stay in sight of the security guard, to take a non-existent step down to the pebble level.   I stumbled, and caught up with him at the elevator.

We rode up the elevator together, and he even pushed the doorbell for me and waited until I was greeted before leaving.  Their door was spectacular.  I’ve noticed here that people really make the hallways of their apartment buildings their own.  Chairs, crown molding, etc.  It seems you can do whatever you want.   These people had decorated the wall with some fancy artwork in the modern style that I just don’t get, and had a door covered with long gold curls.  I don’t think that even remotely makes sense, as I described it, but just rest assured that it was very imposing and impressive looking.   The doorman rang the bell again, and the inner door opened, a face appearing behind the curly shapes.  

She smiled and said ‘hi’ in such a friendly manner that I wasn’t at all put off by her white Chanel high heels that she was wearing in her own home.   Well, I had to google the shoe name later, actually, for this blog.  But I recognized that emblem shape as something to scare and intimidate me.   I wasn’t surprised she was of Indian origin- I figured most people in the club would be, as the city really isn’t diverse in an American city sense.  But I was surprised that she was older than me, at least by a decade or two.  I hadn’t given any thought to the age distribution of the group.  It wasn’t bad, by any means; it just took me by surprise.  

I followed her through a beautiful, marble-floored hallway and through a glass and hardwood cherry door.   On the other side of the door was the happiest, most adorably frantic-for-attention dog.  It was, I think, a Yorkshire terrier.  It just stood straight up, on its two back paws, back straighter than a girl from a Jane Austen novel, and showered me with attention.  So excited, the cute little dog piddled, which I very politely pretended not to notice.   I scratched and petted the little dog until it was taken and safely locked away and none of the other guests got to meet it.

She escorted me to the living room.  It was spectacular.  I feel like it was a home from some magazine, or high-end designer television show.  I honestly don’t know if I’d ever seen anything like it before.  In one corner, oversized white leather couches were adorned with a variety of pillows, including a cow-hair or horsehair pattern.  Opposite the couches were wooden rocking chairs, but very elegant and painted.  A large coffee table, with a red inset was centered in the space.   The white couch that was not against the wall was backless, and wide enough that two people could sit on it, back-to-back, which we did later in the party.  If you weren’t facing the coffee table center, you instead faced a second living space area. This area had a rich dark brown leather couch against the wall, and a long tan leather couch, again backless, opposite the dark brown couch.   The corner was open, and faced a full-glass wall and corner bar.  The legs of the bar were white statues, I think they were of mermaids and Neptune, but my mythology isn’t great and I could be completely off.

Large freestanding vases separated spaces.  Rich gold curtains lined the window-wall, and the bar was covered with Korean art that our host had made herself.  Beyond the large living space was a beautiful table, with crystal chandeliers above it, and dark wood (again, I’m wondering if it was cherry) trunks and cabinets.  It was breathtaking.  

The table was set with ivory and gold teacups and saucers, and very ornately elegant gold and silver flatware.   Stacks of dark blue plates were waiting for us to put the very good tasting snack upon them.  I stood in the room alone, as the host was putting her dog away, and I’m glad I had time to walk to the window and gaze at her pretty balcony furniture without appearing like I was gawking. 

I quietly checked my cell phone- 10:30 on the dot.  Where was everyone else?  

When the host came back, I smiled and told her it was my first meeting, apologizing for being early, and joked that maybe I was supposed to arrive on Indian time.  But very, very shortly, four more women appeared.  

I was, very slightly, alarmed now.  They were all one to three decades older than me.  They had children in college.  But they were all nice people and I chatted amiably with them.  They were all down to earth, thank goodness!   Soon another woman came, who looked closer to my age, with an adorable two-year-old son.  That kid made everyone laugh.  He only wanted to eat food off of other people’s plates.  I would set mine down, while talking, and the next thing you knew, he was running off with my breakfast paneer!   The mother kept apologizing profusely, but I think everyone thought it was cute and amusing, not annoying.  

In the end, maybe twenty-five to thirty women showed up.  I’d say about half, maybe more were of Indian origin, and I was one of the younger people there, despite being nearly thirty.  However, nearly all of the younger women were pregnant.  And I mean very, very, about to pop pregnant.  So I did feel a little out-of-the loop age and lack-of-being-pregnant-wise. I did learn a new India fact.   Women in India aren’t told the sex of their baby.  I guess it makes sense, as a few women will have a girl-child killed and try for a boy.  I didn’t realize that even an American here, who will obviously not kill her child for being a daughter, that they still weren’t allowed to know the baby’s sex.  I wonder how much you have to bribe the doctor to tell you.  

I had a very nice time.  I sat and spoke with one woman, who had also mentioned it was only her second meeting, and really enjoyed chatting with her.  She was also older, but she was from San Salvador. I think.  It was that or Ecuador, I don’t remember now.  But she was very nice.  Her husband was from Pakistan, so she converted from Catholicism to Islam, presumably for her husband.  She even had the headscarf on.  What a life change.  

I drank tea and chatted with all of the women.  Every single person was very friendly; many had Michigan and Bandra connections, which was nice.   The two hours went by very quickly, and too soon I was back in the car on my way home.  The meetings are every two weeks.  I think I’ll go to the next one, too!

Update:  The next one came and went.  I had a hamburger hangover (see a future entry) and skipped it.   But I still plan to go again at some point!